Where Liberalism Is Alive and Well!

This is a photo of my very smart, very talented granddaugther from February 12, she has grown a lot since this picture was taken. She took her first steps this week. Her first birthday party is coming up, an Alice in Wonderland themed party. Grandpa has a lot of work to do to prepare for it, according to grandma. :)

UPDATE: Here is a Youtube clip of her dancing her little butt off. She is amazing, fun, bright and loves to ham it up whenever I point a camera at her.

I used to use a mnemonic device to keep track of the difference between Medicaid and Medicare and it went like this: Medicare has the word care in it, so my thought process was that Republicans only “care” about seniors, not poor people. Of course, now I can’t use that anymore because the don’t care about seniors anymore either. From Think Progress…

The centerpiece of the House Republican’s plan is a proposal that repeals traditional Medicare and replaces it with a health insurance voucher that loses its value over time. Because the value of the Republican’s privatized Medicare replacement does not keep up with the cost of health care, their plan will gradually eliminate Medicare because its increasingly worthless vouchers will eventually only cover a very tiny fraction of the cost of a health insurance plan.

Seniors will feel the effect of the GOP’s draconian plan long before it succeeds in phasing out Medicare. According to the CBO, total health care expenditures for a typical 65-year-old “would be almost 40 percent higher with private coverage under the GOP plan than they would be with a continuation of traditional Medicare” in the very first year that the GOP plan goes into effect:

The brazenness of many in the Republican Party in recent years has just been astounding. With everything in the damn world being video taped, whether by the media or that guy like me with an iPhone pointed at you, you would think that Republicans would be a little more careful with their lies. They seem to have an overconfidence, and they have a right to, since Fox News absolutely never calls out a single Republican for a lie. Never. And the rest of the media is not much better with the exception of the opinion shows at night on MSNBC, but they also waste a lot of their time attacking progressives and the president while Republicans continue to lie. I would imagine that the 4 opinion shows on MSNBC could spend all of their time exposing just lies of Republicans and they still wouldn’t be able to get to them all.

Greg Sargent at The Plum Line gives some details on the hearing above where finally, someone held Walker’s feet to the fire and made him admit the lie that fed the fight against collective bargaining rights for unions. From Greg…

The debate over whether Walker campaigned on that plan has been central to the Wisconsin battle since it began, and it remains significant now that the drive to recall Wisconsin Republicans is under way. Labor and Dems have argued that their reaction to Walker’s proposal — from the Dems’ fleeing of the state to the decision to initiate the recall drives — has been justified by the fact that Walker never leveled with voters about his truly radical intentions.

The claim that Walker campaigned on the proposal has also been central to Walker’s defense of himself throughout the whole fight, and has been widely repeated by many Republicans and conservatives defending the Governor.

And here was his lie, at least one version of it.

This is at odds with what Walker has said in the past. Asked in February whether his move to limit union power was payback, Walker replied: “It’s not a tit for tat. The simple matter is I campaigned on this all throughout the election.”

Recall that bastard, send him packing, fire all the friends he’s put into cushy jobs and shun him forever in American politics. I’m sure that’s going to happen.

Who The Hell Am I!

I’m a liberal that is extreme in some ways and not in others. I support President Obama and make no apologies for it. I think he has done a phenomenal job, especially when you consider that he inherited a huge mess and has faced unprecedented opposition from a lazy & desperate Republican Party. I’m a film producer/director/editor, adjunct professor, technician, media critic and photographer when I’m not reading left wing blogs and typing on this one. – On Twitter @ExtremeLiberal or Email at liberalforreal (at) gmail.com

Own An Important Part Of American History!

Cicely Tyson narrates this award winning documentary that tells the story of African American migration from the old south to the prosperous north. Winner of 5 Awards including "Best Film" at the Astoria International Film Festival, the "Paul Robeson Award" at the Newark Black Film Festival and "Best Film Relating To The Black Experience" at the XXV International Black Cinema Berlin/Germany!